Oscilloscopes and Frequencies

Somebody in alt.comp.freeware told me it may be a good idea to post this here. This is what my original post there said: I need a program that will allow me to accurately read the frequency of a pitch that is being input into my sound card. I need exact numbers. Note: Electroning tuning programs (unless they meet these requirements) do not work. I need Hertz, if at all possible down to decimal places, not cents below a pitch. If it is at all possible, I need it to be real-time as well.
I am not limited to software however. If there is some alternative electrical solution, I am all ears for that as well.
Thanks for any help you can provide.

One day forTe got dressed and committed to text
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Well, you could buy a frequency counter ?? That would count to decimal places dependant on how much you paid :-)
-- Regards ..... Rheilly Phoull
Remember GOOGLE is your friend

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The search term you should probably use is "spectrum analyzer". There are several shareware/freeware programs that do this. All of them display a graph of input level vs. frequency; some of them will tell you the exact frequency of the loudest tone in the input.
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A thing called a frequency counter is such a piece of hardware. It has a jack for the input signal, some switches to set the range, and a digital display of frequency. You can get them in hand-held or bench-top models. Price is around US$200 and up new, and maybe US$100 and up used.
Note that some of these are designed for radio frequencies only and don't go down into the audio range, so check the specifications carefully. Usually the short description will give the frequency range, so something like "5 Hz - 400 MHz" would work, but "1 MHz - 1100 MHz" would not. You may need to dig a little deeper to find out how many decimal places you get in the audio frequency range.
Matt Roberds

forTe wrote:
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There are several solutions - depending on what kit you can get your hands on.
1) You could just connect the signal to an lf frequency counter. The accuracy would depend on the resolution and calibration of the frequency counter.
2) You could connect it to an oscilloscope - but that on its own would not give you the measurement accuracy you need. However, connecting a very accurate and calibrated lf signal generator to the 'scope's z axis would generate a Lissajous figure - you could then very accurately match the frequency of the generator to the signal. Although a bit more complicated, this gives a very useful (and pretty!) graphical representation of the "quality" of the signal. Here the accuracy of measurement depends almost entirely on the accuracy and calibration of the lf generator.
3) You can do an equivalent of (1) and (2) using the sound card and pc software (in association with a precision lf signal generator for (2)):
http://www.staff.uni-mainz.de/zeitnitz/Scope/Scope_en.html
Again, the accuracy is dependent on the lf generator.
4) A simple modification of (3) is to use the computer to generate a variable frequency signal and use that to replace the precision lf signal generator, above. You then use a Lissajous display on either the pc (using the pc software) or the oscilloscope. The accuracy will depend on the pc master clock accuracy - which should be good enough for your requirements.
There are other ways if none of these will do. Let me know if you need more.

forTe wrote:
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The more accuracy you need the harder it is to achieve. Getting accuracy down to a Hertz and decimals of a Hertz as you mentioned is not trivial or cheap. Run of the mill frequency counters won't do it, nor will free (or any?) software. You have the added problem of an unknown signal source. Even with a theoretical "perfect" measuring device, if the signal you are trying to measure is distorted, noisy, varying etc your results will be other than accurate. So you need to specify the tolerance for error you can live with. You could start out with something you can download for free as a baseline, and work form there. Here's one site: http://www.tetrascanner.com/freesoftware.html Look for Frequency counter 1.01 close to the bottom of the page.
Ed

snipped-for-privacy@bellatlantic.net wrote:
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I can't say that I agree with you here - almost any digitally synthesised lf generator, including a pc software based one, will be able to provide this accuracy - combined with a Lissajous display will easily allow a fraction of a Hertz to be resolved. It is, with respect, very trivial and very cheap.
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Here, using a graphical Lissajous representation has great advantages. It does cope very well with distorted and noisy signals in allowing the lf generator to be tuned to the fundamental frequency present, or a harmonic of it.
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That is, of course, paramount. The Op does need to determine how much accuracy (s)he wants before attempting to measure to it.

I need as much accuracy as possible, though, since it is not the most important thing to have it be really past the tenths place, I suppose accuracy is really determined by that. The recordings I am using are not one smooth generated tone. I think, though I am in no way certain, that I may need to filter out some background noise. I will have to see.

forTe schrieb:
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Hello,
you don't get accuracy for free, you have to pay for. The measuring time must be long enough. If the frequency counter is counting full periods only, it is not possible to get in 1 second time of a 1000 Hz tone a resolution of 0.1 Hz, only 1 Hz is possible. For a resolution of 0.1 Hz, you would need a measuring time of 10 seconds and if you want 0.01 Hz, you have to wait 100 seconds.
Bye

Palindr?me wrote:
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Show me a *frequency counter* that yields accuracy at the 100ths of a Hertz. He said decimals, plural. For accuracy at 2 decimal places, you have to measure to *at least* 3 places.
A Lissajous display does not meet his requirement. He said "I need exact numbers." The Lissajous display is a graphic, which must be interpreted to yield a number. In my experience, it is highly doubtful that he will get a known to be accurate number to two decimal places of a Hertz. Further, it is my *assumption* that a PC sound card will not be able to produce a tone with known frequency accuracy at the thousandths of a hertz level.
1 hertz is a bitch. It takes a looooonnggg time to get a lot of samples and the signal has a lot of opportunity, time wise, to vary within the sampling period. It's ten times worse at 1 decimal place, 100 times worse at 2 decimal places, 1000 times worse at 3 decimal places and so on. If you sample for 1 second, you get to "see" 1 complete cycle at 1 Hz. Suppose I happen to sample exactly from the start to the end of that cycle. My measurement says 1 Hz. Now suppose, in a string of 100 pulses, 99 of them are at 10 Hz and 1 is at 1 Hz. The sampling error means that my measurement is ~ 90% *innaccurate.*
So - what software do you have in mind? How accurate can he get cheaply and easily with Lissajous figures, even though that was not within his requirements? Will a PC card as a signal generator be accurate to thousandths of a hertz? Will a Lissajous figure be able to be accurately interpreted to say 700.003 Hz? To 700.03 Hz? To 700.3 Hz? All within the "very cheap" and "very trivial" parameters?
Ed
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snipped-for-privacy@bellatlantic.net wrote:
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A frequency counter is not an option and so is not really worth mentioning. At that end of the spectrum one would measure period, rather than frequency, anyway. Getting accuracy down to a Hertz and decimals is trivial and cheap using a computer-synthesised frequency reference and comparing it to the unknown, however. A Lissajous display is a good visual way of matching a signal generator (in phase as well as frequency) to an unknown. It is particularly good if the signal is noisy.
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The graphic purely shows when the reference signal is very, very closely matched to the unknown in frequency and phase - the numbers come from the synthesised signal generator. Allowing the figure to rotate from a circle to a diagonal line and then adjusting the reference to hold it to that can show changes in phase as small as 5 degrees every 10 seconds, without any problem at all - equivalent to an error < 0.01 Hz.
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Once the unknown signal has been brought in and quantised by the sound card, everything else is done in software, including the generation of the Lissajous figure. Whilst working in a Windows multi-tasking interrupt driven system would be problematic for this measurement, if it has to be real-time, a DOS-environment program, using the main system clock, would be more than capable of maintaining a resolution at the thousandths of a Hertz level in a few hundred Hertz.
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The problem is not in measuring an input signal of ~1Hz. It is in measuring an lf signal to an accuracy <1Hz. Using a system which displays the difference from a reference works very well for this.
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As stated, there is no need to use the sound card as a signal generator, so its accuracy is irrelevant. The accuracy would be determined by the accuracy of the computer bus clock.
The Lissajous figure shows the frequency difference (even better, it shows the phase difference) - so 0.3Hz in 700 Hz is absolutely no problem - 0.03Hz wouldn't be a problem, either.
The whole point of a Lissajous figure is that no measurements are taken from it (usually) - the accuracy of a result is almost totally dependent on the accuracy, precision and calibration of the reference signal. The reference signal is adjusted to match the unknown's fundamental or harmonic and then the signal generator frequesncy is read off.

Palindr?me wrote:
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We are talking at cross purposes, here, regarding counters.. I said: "Run of the mill frequency counters won't do it" and you disagreed. To cover the possibility that you may have thought a frequency counter would do it, I asked you to show one. I take it that it is not an issue - that we agree that a run of the mill frequency counter won't do it.
So, what free PC program - or cheap commercial program - do you have in mind? What additional hardware is needed? What is the accuracy spec of the setup? I have always assumed that a PC sound card produces a *fairly* accurate representation of the tone in either direction, but further assumed that it would not be necessarily accurate to decimals of a Hertz. So you're telling me that a sound card does A/D (and D/A?) to accuracy equivalent to thousandths of a Hertz or better?
I further thought that you had the following in mind: produce an audio tone in the sound card and stuff it into the H or V scope input, and stuff the signal he is interested in into the other. I now understand you do not have that in mind, you are apparently thinking of a PC oscilloscope.. So my original posting about the Lissajous was also cross purposes with what you are talking about.
I'll learn something here. I've heard of PC oscilloscope programs, but I haven't heard too much good about them. Also, I didn't know they included the ability to do Lissajous figures. And I'm eager to hear about the accuracy specs and how they are determined.
Ed
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snipped-for-privacy@bellatlantic.net wrote:
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OK, I should have chopped your reference to frequency counters. From my words I thought it was pretty obvious that I was disagreeing with the "trivial and cheap bit", whilst proposing how to do it trivially and cheaply.
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Sorry, I never even thought twice about using a frequency counter. It was so obviously inappropriate. I deliberately never mentioned one and always mentioned something that would work.
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I gave the reference to the software package I was proposing in my first post. No extra hardware is needed. The accuracy of measurement of the signal fundamental frequency is determined by the accuracy of the PC master clock (see below). It doesn't use the sound card frequency synthesiser directly - only its A/D and D/A. The Windows Sound API produces the digital data stream in real-time and only uses the D/A of the sound card but with timing from the PC software. Your assumptions of the capabilities of the frequency synthesiser in a sound card are misplaced - most, but not all, sound cards are crystal controlled to better than this tolerance but this is irrelevant to this problem. Some (strangely, particularly the cheap ones) use the PC master clock as reference.
True, the process does introduce amplitude error and quantisation noise. However, timing and hence frequency is purely determined by crystal controlled clocks - in this case the PC master clock. The accuracy of a sound card's A/D or D/A in terms of frequency, when being used directly under PC control, is not a function of the card but of the PC itself.
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That will certainly work. It is perefectly valid but the OP asked for a program.
I now understand you do not have that in mind,
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This will also work and is what the reference I posted does. It matters not if the PC is used as the scope or an external one is used, in this particular instance. The theory is identical to the method mentioned above, but just uses the PC as a scope as well as as a generator.
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Have a look at the reference I posted with my first post. Using a PC as a scope is generally a bad idea - but you can use them at audio frequencies with some success. Some do Lissajous - some do not - the reference I posted was to one that does.
Accuracy is a different matter. If absolute amplitude accuracy matters, forget it. Calibration will wander faster than a teenage boy's hands in a cinema.
The one thing that they can get right is time-dependent measurements - eg relative phase and frequency.
So how is frequency and phase accuracy determined? The absolute resolution on a Windows machine is one ten-thousandth of a millisecond (0.0000001 seconds). Its absolute accuracy is very roughly better than 100 parts per million - although its stability is typically better than 50 parts per million. Although Windows can report time in hectonanoseconds, it is more usual to use 1mSec slices - each of which will typically be repeatable to 0.1uSec and accurate to 0.2uSec.

Palindr?me wrote:
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I've enjoyed reading all of this. I don't know the PC sound card architecture and learned from you that it uses the PC clock. I did look at the software you mentioned, but dismissed it based on what I have heard in general about PC 'scopes. You verified that, but also pointed out more detail which I did not know: "The one thing that they can get right is time-dependent measurements - eg relative phase and frequency. " That is something I did not know - I assumed, from what I have read, that PC 'scopes were/are a fun toy, but not particularly useful. Put another way, my thinking was that my Tek 475 was *always* better than a PC scope for any scope function. From what you say, that's not true. And, from what you said, I now have "un-dismissed" that software. I might even download and play with it.
But back to the issue. What I still don't know, and don't know how to find out, is the accuracy specification for measurements delivered by the software. From the original post it seemed that the only way to deliver what was required was with instrumentation with a traceable standard. You can't get known *exact* without that. But set that aside. The closest I came in searching was in finding a package whose stated measurement accuracy was down to 2/3 of a Hertz. The question isn't so much whether the software will display so many decimal places, it is how accurate will it be. Did you use it (or find a spec on it for accuracy)? If you've used it, your feel for how accurate it is is good enough for me.
Ed

snipped-for-privacy@bellatlantic.net wrote:
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They generally have their own clocks for signal synthesis. But you don't have to use these clocks.
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Have fun!
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A software-generated lf , say 1Hz, signal from a bog-standard PC can be expected to have a frequency accurate to better than 0.002 Hz. Its harmonic content is a different matter.
In this case I was/am proposing using a Lissajou figure so that the OP won't be using the PC to measure the incoming signal's frequency. The OP will adjust the software generated signal to match the incoming signal in frequency and phase. IMHO, that works very well when the input signal (and the reference) has harmonic content or noise and/or a dc offset. Then the OP reads the frequency of the software generated signal - which will be accurate to decimal fractions of a Hz, as required.
This technique avoids trying to measure the frequency of the incoming signal itself - which is very difficult, as you mentioned. Other techniques, such as measuring the period orf very many cycles of the signal and taking an average, take much longer and use much more expensive kit. It certainly doesn't produce results in real time. The refrerence signal for a Lissajous figure can be continuously altered in frequency and even phase to match the input signal.
You can use a PC to measure period - accurate to 0.2uSec per mSec. However, the problem comes in determining the trigger points at the beginning and end of the period. But it will beat your analogue scope - for audio frequencies and below.